Where the Sun Don't Shine

You haven't seen Greensboro, the town where I live, until you've seen it from underground.

Not that there's a lot to see in the pitch darkness beneath the roads, in a concrete-walled tunnel, with four inches of water trickling past your feet, a quarter of a mile from the nearest egress, somewhere beneath Fisher Park. After a time, the five-foot ceiling puts an uncomfortable, semi-permanent bend in your spine. You really, really hope your flashlight doesn't die. You have to keep a wary eye out for rats, snakes, spiders, and other potentially hostile indigenous life forms.

I suspect this is not what a whole heap of local folks do for a good time late at night, but for my friend Paul and I last night, it was a blast. We found the geocache.

I did mention to Paul's wife, Jamie, that our excursion was remarkably similar to a scene in my novel, Balak; I did not, however, tell her that, in the novel, things do not end well for the parties involved. It probably would not have been the right thing to say at the time.

Addendum: A nice royalty check for Blue Devil Island arrived. Mighty good timing, I have to say.